For Want of a Kingdom
by Cassanah
Summary: Jon Snow visits the single Stark of Winterfell. AU-ish.


The years had trained Sansa to show only what she wanted to show. Sometimes when she looked at herself through silvered glass she barely recognized the cool, tranquil woman gazing back. Yet when Jon Snow rode through the gates of Winterfell with his men behind him, Sansa could not help but give a little gasp.

He looks like Father, only younger. It was as though all the years had fallen away and Ned Stark had just returned from some long excursion. She was eleven years old again, surrounded by her brothers and sister and the household she had known since the beginning of memory, waiting for him, safe, happy, with her mother at her side.

You are the Lady of Winterfell now, not a naïve little bird or a lonely bastard girl, she reminded herself, so when Jon Snow dismounted before her, she smiled and welcomed him courteously, all the while observing him beneath her eyelashes.

He had a big smile on his face. Robb would have embraced her long and tight, but Jon Snow did not, and instead awkwardly pressed his lips to her hand. "Lady Sansa, it is sweet to see you safe and healthy. I'd heard that Winterfell had been rebuilt to surpass the original, and now I see the truth of it."

"You are too kind, my Lord. We are still working to restore the First Keep and the Bell Tower," she said modestly. "Will you and your company not rest? We have prepared all accommodations. When Winterfell was rebuilt I did my best to make it as I remembered it. Your old chambers await you."

"By your leave, I would first pay my respects to King Robb and Lord Eddard Stark."

Our brother and father, you mean. Her smile did not slip. A Lord Commander of the Night's Watch would never have asked for that, but Jon Snow did.

"The crypts were untouched," she told him. "Father is at rest in Winterfell, where he belongs. As is Robb."

Jon looked sad. "I am glad to hear it."

Sansa knew how many men he had brought and noted in her mind what marked each of them out. Without seeming to look she saw that Jon's sword was of Valyrian steel, and that when he dismounted, there had been a slight limp in his left leg. Oh, he had changed from the boy she remembered. It had been eight years since she had last seen Jon Snow, her bastard half-brother. He was taller now, a man in the summer of his life, but somehow also colder, despite his obvious gladness at seeing her. Some part of the Wall had touched him; a frost of the soul. Sansa understood perfectly.

As she stood in the snowy courtyard and watched his retreating back, Sansa's stomach fluttered a little, a feeling she hated. She wished Bran or Rickon or even Arya were here with her, but her brothers and sisters were gone, or at least they were missing.

There must always be a Stark in Winterfell. And there was. Sansa gathered herself up and conducted the household servants to stable the horses and feed the men. On the day she had retaken Winterfell she had promised herself she would never let anyone ever again take it for themselves, and then she had slept soundly for the first time in years.

* * *

Jon had the place of honour beside her, at the right of the great chair. The hall was filled with men in blacks and dark greys, and Sansa was glad she had worn something bright and cheerful. She had first thought to don a green woollen dress before she had realized how much she looked like her mother, especially with her long auburn hair. Everyone knew that there had been little love between Jon Snow and Catelyn Tully, so instead she settled on a dress of robin blue, which her mother had always loved, because she said it brought out her eyes. It still embarrassed Sansa that all her clothes were a little careworn; she had no idea what the latest fashions from the South were, although she did not care as much as she used to.

The feast was of the best quality she could manage. Winter had come, and with the lingering food shortages in the south, none of them could eat extravagantly. Sansa was not hungry, though. The memory of what Jon had said to her in her father's study not an hour ago repeated in her mind.

She glanced at him. How could it be? He looked so much like Father. It could have been Ned Stark who had come to life and sat beside her, quietly tearing through a roast of mutton. And yet…

"Howland Reed swears it, by our – your father's memory."

Sansa had sat back in her chair, her mind filled with images of old mad kings and gallant princes and blood. "Rhaegar and Lyanna…? If this is true –"

"It is, Sansa." Jon's eyes were dark and intense.

"But why would Father conceal such a thing?"

"I know as little as you," he said, bitterness welling up in his voice. "He never told me anything about my mother."

"Perhaps it was too painful for him," said Sansa gently. "You know how much he loved his sister."

She sighed and studied his face, trying to find a trace of the hallmark Targaryen traits in his familiar face. He seemed discomfited by her scrutiny. "I am still a bastard. Little enough has changed."

She'd silently wondered how it was that he could be so thick. "You are a Targaryen. Jon Targaryen," she said experimentally. The name sounded strange in her mouth. "You may be the rightful heir to the Iron Throne."

Jon shook his head. "A bastard has no claims, or else we'd be swimming in kings."

But that was not right, she remembered. The Targaryens had always practiced strange customs that the rest of Westeros did not. Their habit of taking their own sisters to wife, for example. And they had also practiced polygamy. She told as much to Jon, who raised his eyebrows incredulously.

"Even if that were true, even if Lyanna and Rhaegar had wed, I am still a Brother of the Night's Watch. I shall wear no crowns…" She could see that the thought was ludicrous to him. He had been a bastard his entire life, after all.

Now Sansa glanced at him shyly. It occurred to her that they were cousins now. The only other cousin she had known was poor little Robert Arryn, who had not lived to see his tenth nameday. It made her sad to realize that she had no one to call brother any more.

"What's wrong, Sansa?" he asked quietly, so that the others could not hear. He has been studying me, she realized, as much as I have been studying him.

"I was… you have given me much to think about, Jon Snow." She smiled brightly at him. "I fear I have been a poor host. Will you tell me more about Castle Black? What is it like beyond the Wall?"

She distracted him with questions about his men and their daily activities, laughing when it was appropriate, gasping when he told her about wildlings and the Others. He talked more when he was drunk, she noticed. And Sansa found herself becoming pleasantly warm and light-headed. It was nice – no, more than nice, it was lovely to talk and laugh and even jape with the only person she trusted who still lived. That was morbid, but it was true.

When it was time to go to bed she said her goodnights, to her household and to Jon Snow. It was only in the dark peace of her chambers that she realized she could not sleep. A million thoughts ran through her mind and she was not at all tired. Worse, the agreeable feeling she'd had at the feast was dissipating, leaving her cold beneath her furs.

That is the last time I do not watch my drink, she told herself. Sansa rose, nodding to the guard at her door, and slipped out, towards the godswood of her childhood. She would look upon the heart tree, as she had done a thousand times, and gain peace from doing so. And some comfort, too.

There was already a figure sitting beneath the tree when she arrived.

"Hello, Jon."

"Sansa." He smiled, and she seated herself beside him. "I went to check on Ghost, and then I wondered if the godswood was still here."

"It was left nearly untouched during the sack."

"Father used to come here after he'd taken a man's life," said Jon. He isn't your father anymore, she thought. And I'm not your sister.

He looked thoughtful. "I was scared shitless of his greatsword – Ice – when I was little. The first time I saw that blade descend on a man's neck…"

"Tywin Lannister melted it down and reforged it into two blades, after he took it from Ser Ilyn Payne." She couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice, from rising in her throat. "One he gave to a Lannister man, and the other to the Kingslayer, who entrusted it to a woman named Brienne of Tarth."

No matter how much Brienne insisted that Jaime Lannister had changed, she would never forgive him for pushing Bran out of the window. He would always be Kingslayer to her, a twisted man who laughed when others cried and who had begotten a monster.

Jon's voice interrupted her thoughts. "The woman who found you and brought you back to Winterfell – that Brienne?"

"Yes. She was a woman, but she wielded that sword better than any man. And deserved it, too." By the time she'd at last been able to shed Alayne like one sheds a fur coat, Sansa no longer cared that her saviour did not look like the knights in the songs. "It was called Oathkeeper. It's smaller than Ice, but you would have seen it in the crypts today."

"I saw it."

"The crypts have always frightened me," she confessed. "But after Father and Robb were laid to rest I found it peaceful, as if I was among friends. I spent a few nights there when I first returned."

"No one else could have restored Winterfell so well but you. Not me," he added awkwardly. "Stannis offered me Winterfell, but I knew…"

Sansa wondered why he was telling her. She knew how much he must have wanted it, although she resented that Stannis Baratheon had had the gall to offer up what was not his to offer. "Stannis will be brought to justice one day, the Others take his soul."

Jon winced. "Stannis saved my life, helped me defend the Wall against the Others. I do not like his presence at Castle Black, but he aided us when no one else would."

She regretted her harsh tone. "If I had the men, I would help you, you know it."

He nodded. For a long moment they were silent, and she felt the weariness sinking into her at last.

Then Jon looked up, as if remembering something. "I'm sorry about your husband. His passing must have been hard on you."

"Thank you. Harry was… he was not unkind." She thought for a moment. Dull and prone to bedding other women, yes. But never cruel, not even in his cups. "Our marriage was one of the few kindnesses Littlefinger granted me." She had mourned Harry as much as she could have. Jon's face told her how sorry he was.

"A Black Brother who hailed from King's Landing once told me that Petyr Baelish was as slippery as a snake and twice as venomous."

She smiled faintly. "He was certainly clever. For a while I hoped that he would use his wits to help me where all else had failed, but he never gave, only took…" Sansa remembered kisses and soft fingers touching her where it hurt in a way that mixed pain with sweetness, and a smooth voice murmuring another woman's name.

"He hurt you, didn't he?" Sansa could see the anger written across Jon Snow's face and she was touched.

"He taught me how to survive."

There was no gratitude in her tone. She thought of Joff and his blonde hair falling over his choking black face and then of Sandor Clegane, who had kissed her while the rest of the world was burning to the ground. And of Littlefinger, with his pleased little smile that she worked so hard to put on his face, even though in the end none of it had mattered. All these men had taken her and used her and left their mark on her and then died, despite their best efforts. And they wanted her to take another husband!

"Well, you're safe now." Jon's voice was soft.

"I wanted them to be safe, too, all of them. I thought I was making Father safe when I –" She could not say it. The mere thought of what she had done so long ago in King's Landing made her nauseous.

A long time ago a king who drank too much and did too little rode through these gates and with one clumsy stroke forever ripped apart the fabric of her life.

Her brothers and her parents and her sister, she had wanted to save all of them. Her father should have been the one to welcome Jon, her mother combing her hair at night and kissing her before sleep. Bran should have been climbing and riding and squiring, and Rickon a chance to grow up. Arya would be practising with her sharp sword, evading Septa Mordane and forever making a nuisance of herself. And Robb, beloved Robb, he and Jon had always been so close. She'd had this fantasy so many times that sometimes she thought she could hear their voices in a distant part of Winterfell, laughing and shouting.

"The worst part is I don't know where they are. Every so often I hear rumours that Arya or Bran or Rickon are alive. It drives me mad – I miss them so much." Sansa felt a burning sensation in her throat, but Jon had been right, she was safe here. No one could use her tears against her. They leaked out of her eyes and dropped onto her cheeks. Dark marks appeared on the front of her dress where her tears fell.

"Oh Sansa," said Jon Snow, and he hugged her tight and close.

"You're the only one I have left," she told him, muffled against his shoulder. At least Jon was warm and real, and his scent was familiar and comforting. His thumb traced a gentle path where her jaw met her ear. It felt good. Too good. She marshalled herself and raised her head. In the dim light his eyes were violet, as beautiful as a bouquet of summer wildflowers. Sansa had never noticed before.

It was the easiest thing in the world to close the distance between them, their mouths touching lightly at first. Then she put her hands in his black hair and pulled him down, and he deepened the kiss until she was dizzy and flushed.

It was Sansa who broke away first. She smoothed her skirts, trying to control the painful fluttering in her belly.

"You're so sweet, Jon."

Jon's expression was troubled. She couldn't help but notice that his hair was tousled and his lips very red. "Sansa –"

"I'm a little tired." Her smile came out uneven. "I'm to be up early tomorrow."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…" He fumbled with his words, as he used to do when they were little, especially in Lady Catelyn's presence.

This time the smile she gave him was better, more real. "For what? Thank you for listening to all of my troubles."

Awkwardly he helped her rise, because her cramped legs were prickly and frozen. "No, no, please don't trouble yourself," she said, when he insisted on escorting her back to her rooms. Sansa did not think she could resist him if they were inside, together, hemmed in by four stone walls.

That night, her last thought before she drifted to sleep was of Jon Snow's eyes, warm and sad. Dreaming, she imagined that her family was alive and well, that it had all been a terrible and long nightmare. When she woke the next morning she wondered why there were tears on her pillow.

* * *

First written July 10, 2009.


End file.
